Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons, and welcome to Joy
Lab.
Aimee Prasek: And I'm Aimee Prasek here at Joy Lab where we infuse science with soul to help you uncover joy. And today we are working on our element of gratitude. And we're doing that by talking about fear. Yikes. So we did Envy last episode. Be sure to check on that one as well. this will make sense. So listen in as we get into this.
With fear, Gratitude [00:01:00] comes in again as a really effective way to reduce fear, just like with envy. I want to start with a story. I think it'll hopefully shine light on this. It's a story about the dentist. So heads up,
Henry: Oh,
Aimee Prasek: are
real. So.
Henry: got to take my headphones off here.
Aimee Prasek: This is an experiential podcast where we activate fear and then we'll work on taming it with gratitude. So here we go. I picked up my six year old from school to head to the dentist to get a cavity redone. And so she needed all of the things and I asked her if she'd eaten lunch yet because she might not be able to eat after the appointment for a couple hours and she told me, "I don't know, mama. I feel a little sick."
I was thinking, oh my god, no. We need to go to this appointment and get this done because I am fearful about it for her sake. But I didn't say anything because I could tell she was sort of thinking after she said that. She was [00:02:00] thinking about her tummy feeling sick. That's what I assumed. And she said after a little bit of time, "I actually think I'm scared a little about going to the dentist."
And so that might sound really simple, but I thought it was really amazing to see her intuitively name the emotion that was causing her physical sensations, right? Her fear, her anxiety was giving her a signal, like we talked about in last episode. And it just reminded me as well, how powerful that skill we have is, how we can all do that.
Alright, it's the reason emotions embody like that so we can respond, they get our attention, we can take action in the best way possible, but it does take some work.
So, in her case, we talked about the fact that she had already had this same exact procedure done [00:03:00] 3 times before. That's a whole nother story. I won't get into, but she did really great, mostly through those. But I think that that familiarity a bit was enough to kind of break down a little bit of that initial fear response for her.
And then we started talking about what we're feeling grateful for when it comes to our teeth and then all the folks in the dentist's office and with a six year old, the conversation obviously took some crazy turns, but she had expressed a lot of gratitude for the toys at the dentist's office, for the way her dentist calls one of the drills, Mr. Bumpy, and that made her smile. And sort of a few of the other little extras that they do for the kids at the dentist's office. And then I asked her how her tummy felt after we had kind of had this conversation. She said, it feels a little bumpy, but it also feels warm. [00:04:00] And I'm excited to pick out a toy, or it's excited to pick out a toy.
I think her tummy was excited. So I like as well, then she, she actually kind of made her tummy a character in this practice, which I'm going to, maybe I'm making too big of a stretch here. But which made me think about the observing self that we talk about here, right? She stepped a bit away to get a bigger picture of what she was feeling, like, looking at her tummy, like a curious scientist and of course, her tummy wants a toy at the dentist.
Right? What tummy would not? So this is a really, hopefully a helpful story, but also it was really impactful for me to see her navigate this emotion of fear, feel it in her body, give it some attention, name it as fear, and then work with it with gratitude and notice a shift as well. We can all do this.
It is wired in us.
Henry: Wow, that is such a great story. And, I'll tell you, I could learn a [00:05:00] thing or two from Maizie with this.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: I recently had an urgent dental appointment. And let's just say Mr. Bumpy is no friend of mine.
Aimee Prasek: I hate Mr. Bumpy.
Henry: And I did not get to pick out any toy at all.
Aimee Prasek: I know. I don't understand why all of those things stop at some age and then adulting at the dentist is way more difficult, but I hear you, Henry.
Henry: Yeah, well, I think that there are a lot of similarities to the two emotions we've been working with these last couple of episodes, envy and fear.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: Both of them are unpleasant, both of them are hardwired into us through evolution, and they both have an upside if we can learn to work with them and not let them just completely take us over. I think fear is even more ubiquitous and has even more negative consequences than envy. [00:06:00] One could even argue that fear gives rise to all the other negative emotions, that fear is the big kahuna here. Isn't envy related to the fear that we'll lose out somehow, that we won't get what we need or we don't compare well enough to others?
It seems like it's fear based, essentially. So fear is just so deeply embedded into our biology that when it's activated really strongly, like in a panic attack, let's say, it can feel next to impossible to dial it back. So ideally, we don't want to wait until it gets to that point. We want to learn to dial it back repeatedly, every time we notice it. And then if possible, we want to learn to go so far upstream in this process that we get to the very source of fear, and we can stop it before it even starts to [00:07:00] emerge. I think the primary source of fear today often lies with our sense of personal insecurity. The belief that I'm not enough. That I won't have enough or that I won't be safe. And nurturing gratitude goes right after each of these beliefs. They're not true in the first place. But we often believe that they are, simply because we repeat them so often. So, it's not so much that gratitude challenges these beliefs, it's more like it just replaces them with something more solid that's more real. So, in Maizie's story, for example, I don't think she was feeling insecure about herself. She just might have felt she wasn't safe or that this is going to hurt, which, frankly, is not an unreasonable fear, is it? She may not have done exactly what we think of as a gratitude [00:08:00] practice, although she did seem grateful for the toy, maybe even for Mr. Bumpy. But she was able to defang the fear, pun intended, by naming it and placing her attention right on her body. Which just helps you get out of the thinking that was making her feel so bad in the first place. And like you said, Aimee, that's just such a great example of the inborn intuitive wisdom that a six year old has and that we all have.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Yeah. We are wise. So maybe a bit of a pivot here, but there's some interesting research that I want to highlight with gratitude and fear, and it was a study with folks who had experienced early stage breast cancer, survived that in the past, and then they engaged in a six week gratitude intervention to assess how their fear of cancer recurrence [00:09:00] might change. Which is a really important outcome for that group.
And the group that went through this six week program, importantly, had a significant decrease in death related fear of recurrence. So that matters. And I think that's pretty impressive, actually, for a six week intervention to, like, address, fear of dying. So there's that. But the most interesting thing here, to me at least, was another outcome that they assessed, which is known as pursuit of meaningful goals, and that pursuit of meaningful goals partially mediated this decrease in fear.
So this research, kind of explain it here, supports that we can practice gratitude, not just to reduce fear, like not just to get into a better mood. But when we practice gratitude, we are [00:10:00] more likely to take action in ways that are meaningful to us, to engage in behaviors that support us, behaviors that are nourishing, and that helps to reduce the fear as well.
Compare that to actions we take based on fear. I've made many of those from that space and meaningful, nourishing, smart are not the words that come to mind, right?
Henry: That research is just so interesting to me.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: It's just easy to think that gratitude makes us feel better in the moment and appreciate things that have already happened to us, or things we already
have. But I like that this is suggesting that when we feel more grateful, we actually become more future oriented as well. And then it helps us move toward the future in a more positive way. So, life feels more meaningful and we can seek more meaning. Man, talk about a [00:11:00] virtuous cycle. That's really cool. So this study looked at the fear of recurrence of cancer, which is obviously not an irrational fear for anyone who's had cancer. And I think it's also related to the fear of mortality, which, is often viewed as the ultimate fear, the one that underlines all the others. It's just such a deep and profound topic that it's, it's just hard to get our minds around directly. So I'm going to talk about another example that, is, is also common, I think.
And that relates to this conversation about meaning that you kind of brought up. So at my stage of life, I know a lot of folks who are either in retirement or coming very close to it. And one of the things I've learned is that it is a really huge transition for folks. And I often hear people talk [00:12:00] of the fear of being irrelevant. I think it's another way of saying that they would like to figure out a way to, to keep some sense of meaning in their lives once they are no longer getting it from their careers or their, or their jobs. I think this is such a good example of how to use gratitude as a really helpful tool, not just to feel better, but as a springboard to answering like a really big question. "How do I stay relevant?" So imagine if you approached it like a lot of us do, trying to make a big decision, creating and checking off our to do lists, reading a bunch of books about retirement, making pro and con lists, and so on and so on. You just start agonizing [00:13:00] over how to use, how to spend your time.
And this, I see a lot of people that really get caught in that. And then imagine how different it would feel if instead of trying to figure it out, you did something totally different. Like maybe starting a gratitude journal that's focused on your work. So you could spend some time writing in this journal, or however you like to do that, where you're harvesting goodness from your career.
You're reflecting on what you loved about it, what the unique skills and qualities you brought to it. And then you can just allow that to inform you for how you want to contribute now that you're no longer getting a paycheck. You're freed up in a sense. You are freed up to do just exactly what gives you a sense of meaning and purpose- [00:14:00] and pleasure. So, you start with gratitude, and then you let it flow from there. And I imagine this process would be effortless, maybe even joyful. I should probably say, Aimee, I am not planning to retire anytime soon.
Aimee Prasek: God
Henry: That's not that why I brought this up And you know what? I am already doing work that just gives me a ton of meaning and pleasure.
So thought I should add that
You're
Aimee Prasek: stuck. You're here. I think I love that you're, positioning it toward this group experiencing that transition into retirement. But when you said, how do I stay relevant? I mean, I think there's a lot of pressure... like influencer culture, um, pressures to do bigger things in your career. Like all of those pressures that we might feel that get at that same question, [00:15:00] in some ways, meaning purpose, how do I stay relevant?
I think this is a practice that transcends all of our transition groups, all of where we might be.What a, what a great practice to just come into some gratitude around what is at this stage in your life, whether it's retirement or you're in the sandwich generation, or you're in college, whatever it might be.
I just think that's really, I think it's a great practice. So, I also really love this conversation because it reminds me that fear is not a bad thing. And I don't know if folks will remember those no fear shirts. but, I was a middle school or high school. Maybe they're still around. I don't know. My fashion is, is aging.
I think I'm not totally and maybe they're back,but it was always hard for me to wrap my head around those. That quote, or that tagline, because I really had a lot of fear as a kid. I had a lot of worries. My survival wiring was [00:16:00] overactive and I didn't have a lot of support to figure that out.And so a problem for me, and I think many of us, is that there is a lot of that kind of messaging that fear is a weakness, that we can be fearless.
I do not buy it. I don't think we need to be overactive and obviously and stuck in a cycle, but fear is just another emotion. It doesn't feel good, usually, but it can be helpful. It can be life saving at times. Of course, the problem is when it gets rejected or it is not navigated, it's not practiced with, then it can get over activated and it can come out sideways in every which way.
I kind of wish those shirts would have said Okay, fear, I see you. Let's chat. Let's consider gratitude as a strategy. It's the whole back of the shirt, [00:17:00] which is probably a shirt that would never sell, but hey, let us know folks. We can get our merch fired up with a narrative on fear and gratitude on the back of a t shirt.
Anyway, well, here's the thing, right? Fear is not the problem. I hope, in some ways, that's kind of coming out here, but what fear can make us do, can be a problem. We understand that. And gratitude can be used skillfully and really logically to not just calm that response, but it can actually, as you said, Henry, more future oriented.
It can set us up to take meaningful action. I think that's awesome. Maybe a good place to close as well. So I hope this episode has offered you some ways to feel more confident in flexing your gratitude muscles. They are stronger than fear. And I think I'll share some wisdom as well from the great Willie Nelson to take with us.
Here it is. "When I started [00:18:00] counting my blessings, my whole life turned around."
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